


The House of his Enemies and the Slayers of his Kin

by Dorkangel



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Celebrimbor in Gondolin, Cultural Differences, Elf Culture & Customs, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Himring, Hurt/Comfort, Maeglin leaves Gondolin, Past Abuse, The Sons of Fëanor adopt Maeglin, elf racism, pre-Nirnaeth Arnoediad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29642916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: Himring is probably the coldest place that Maeglin has ever been.He tries to put away that thought, and not to shiver very visibly as he glances up through his lashes at Maedhros Fëanorion. Terrible and fell, his father had always said were the sons of Fëanor, and Maeglin can believe it. Of course, his mother’s stories had been different. But they had been few and far between.Above, Maedhros shifts forwards in his high seat with a slight rustling of heavy robes, and Maeglin trembles involuntarily. Out of the cold, he promises himself. Only the cold.“You wish to leave Gondolin,” rasps the lord of Himring, with no small amount of incredulity in his voice. “To comehere?”
Relationships: Maeglin | Lómion & Curufin, Maeglin | Lómion & Sons of Fëanor
Comments: 56
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from this line: _"Come, Maeglin son of Eöl! Leave the house of his enemies and the slayers of his kin, or be accursed!" But Maeglin answered nothing._
> 
> This fic is set not long after Maeglin came to Gondolin in canon, before the death of Fingolfin.
> 
> Content Warnings in the End Notes.

Himring is probably the coldest place that Maeglin has ever been.

He tries to put away that thought, and not to shiver very visibly at the chill he feels all too keenly through the thin, delicately-made Noldorin fabrics of his borrowed clothes, but he can’t help it. Maeglin knows he should not appear ungrateful or disdainful. That’s far from his right. He’s been sent to beg to be taken in, and failing that, to return to Gondolin doubly unwanted; all under guard, of course, since King Turgon is far too cautious and distrusting an elf for it to be otherwise. It’s not entirely necessary: Maeglin won’t say that he doesn’t have an urge to flee, and a strong one, but he knows well the price of the disobedience of powerful ners. Bondage and death. He fears both of those, and death, that which Turgon has promised him where Eöl had only threatened, above the other. So he will not run.

Of Maeglin’s two guardians, his two jailers, Maedhros seems more to him like Eöl than Turgon - though Eöl would likely be furious if he ever discovered that his son was thinking such a thing about any of the Noldor.

He chances a glance up at the lord of Himring, resisting the impulse to check if his eyelashes have truly frosted over yet, but drops his gaze again before he has a chance to make out much more than a severe expression twisting Maedhros’s face even further beneath his scars, and red hair tumbling unbound over his shoulder. _Terrible and fell_ , his father had always said were the sons of Fëanor, and Maeglin can believe it. Of course, his mother’s stories had been different. But they had been few and far between.

 _Why does he not speak?_ Maeglin thinks, surprising himself with the venom of his thoughts. He stands before Maedhros - and two other of the Fëanorions, though he couldn’t say which two - waiting for judgement, and Maedhros is silent. Maeglin waits with his head bowed and his clasped formally in front of him, the object of the discussion, not a member of it; he has not necessarily listened to the speech that one of his guards, Ecthelion, had made on his behalf to explain the situation and his request, but he believes at least that it was thorough. Whether Turgon thought Maeglin too young to plead his own case or whether he simply does not trust him is a moot point: his uncle is scrupulous in all things.

Above, Maedhros shifts forwards in his high seat with a slight rustling of heavy robes, and Maeglin trembles involuntarily. _Out of the cold,_ he promises himself. _Only the cold._

“You wish to leave Ondolindë,” rasps the lord of Himring, with no small amount of incredulity in his voice. “To come _here_?”

It is a fair question. Himring is… inhospitable, at best, and as Maedhros names it, Gondolin is a city of music and fountains. But if it was not so, then Maeglin would not have begged his uncle to allow him to travel all this way. Beside him, Ecthelion awkwardly clears his throat, ready to recite another piece of rhetoric that Turgon has prepared for him, but then falls silent. When Maeglin raises his eyes a little, he sees that Maedhros has cut him off with an imperious wave of his left hand.

(What he knows to be the stump of the right remains hidden in the folds of Maedhros’s robes, in a way that Maeglin can only suspect must be intentional.)

“I thank you, Lord Ecthelion, but I was asking Lómion.”

Maeglin twitches slightly at the easy use of his mother-name. For so long it had been a secret kept close to his heart, used only by Aredhel and in his most private dreams of returning to a home he had never known. But his mother is dead, Gondolin is merely another prison, and all of those that surround him use his mother-name as though his hard-won father-name is some kind of curse.

“I -” he begins, then pauses to lick his dry lips, hating himself and his upbringing with sudden passion. “Forgive me, lord,” he blurts, unsure of how to address someone who is both his mother’s first cousin and a high prince he is making himself supplicant to. “My Quenya is very poor - may I -”

“Yes,” cuts Maedhros, firm but not disapproving. “Of course.”

Relieved, Maeglin switches to Sindarin.

“Gondolin is beautiful, sir. And I am grateful for the kindness of its king. But…” He hesitates, partially trying to find the right words, and partially reluctant to give poor Gondolin yet another name. “But it is… the place of corpses, to me.”

 _Dor-Daen_. The black-haired Fëanorion twitches at the word.

Maeglin also does not want to stay in Gondolin because it is filled with Noldor who don’t look like him or speak like him or dress like him or seem to like him at all. But he would not dare to say that to Maedhros or his brothers, who, after all, are Noldor too. There are more reasons he could give that would not be insults, Maeglin is sure. But he can’t bring himself to think of any, and drops his eyes, trails off.

“You cannot return to your father’s lands?”

It is not Maedhros’s rough, scraped voice: it must be the other prince, the black-haired one.

Maeglin shakes his head, thinking of the way that Eöl’s retainers had always viewed his mother and him as outsiders, and the disdain Thingol had for those who fled the girdle of Melian.

“I would not be welcome. And,” he swallows, tries not to stammer. “King Turgon would not permit me to go among the Sindar or Avari knowing the location of his city.”

Likely Maedhros will have some similar rule. Maeglin shudders again at the prospect of spending the rest of his life in the icy chill of Himring, but at least he has asked for this. This time he will not need any threats of the sort that have always haunted him to make him stay. _You shall obey me or I will set you in bonds_ , hisses his father’s ghost in his mind, vicious. _Abide here or die here._

When he looks up again, Maedhros is exchanging whispers with the two of his brothers that are present, deep frowns set between each of their brows. Ecthelion takes the opportunity to briefly place a sympathetic hand on his shoulder; there’s pity in his eyes, and Maeglin would like to say that he does not want it, but after all that has happened, he can’t.

Eventually - it cannot be that long, but it feels like years - Maedhros turns back to him with a slightly softer face. As soft as it can be with the deep red and white gouges through it, anyway. He looks more like he has been mauled by some wild beast than methodically tortured.

“Lómion, son of Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, you are very welcome here.”

Maeglin feels tension bleed from every part of his body, simultaneously freeing and exhausting him. He bows very low.

“Thank you, my lord.” he breathes, so elated that he dares to look up properly.

“You may call us ‘uncle’,” says Maedhros’s black-haired brother as he steps down towards him - the second eldest, Maeglin thinks, but he cannot recall his name. He has a kind face. “If you wish.”

Maeglin inclines his head in acknowledgement, but the other brother rolls his eyes.

“Don’t scare him away so soon, Káno.” Perhaps seeing Maeglin’s confused expression, though, this third prince relents a little. “Our names will do for now, boy.”

The flash of worry that Maeglin feels at that is easily suppressed - his mother had spoken of her family, of course, but more of her brothers than her cousins, only on the rare occasions that Eöl had not been around to listen, and even then constantly translating in and out of the Quenya they had been forbidden to speak, which meant additionally that they had never been able to write anything down or to repeat it by rote. Maedhros is instantly recognisable, and Aredhel had often told stories of her escapades with Celegorm, who Maeglin is sure is not here, but the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t _know_ most of their names. _Káno_ cannot be anything more than an epessë or a fragment of some name little-used, he is sure.

“Lord Ecthelion, you and your company will be hungry and tired.” says the second-eldest, turning his friendly gaze from Maeglin to his guards. “I can take you to a place of rest.”

Ecthelion only smiles back gratefully. The touch to Maeglin’s elbow is unexpected, but he manages to barely jump at all.

“Lómion-”

“Thank you.” he says, quickly and quietly, and in Ecthelion’s native tongue. It’s one of the few phrases he knows in Quenya with any confidence.

Ecthelion nods to him, then bows to the Fëanorion - who has not surreptitiously averted his eyes from Gondolin’s soldiers and their well-delivered young charge as Turgon would have done, but continues to watch with the same intensity as his brothers - and allows himself and his men to be led away. 

The remaining brother throws his eyes briefly at Maedhros before smirking wryly at Maeglin.

“Those are your only clothes, I take it?”

Maeglin’s cheeks colour, and he feels suddenly very small.

“Curufin,” scolds Maedhros, but his brother barely acknowledges the chastisement.

“What? Why else would he be wearing them? You must be freezing.”

He can hardly object.

“King Turgon was good enough to give me these,” says Maeglin, trying not to mumble. “And Gondolin- I am used to a… far warmer climate, than this.”

“And you brought no others?”

“My mother and I left the forest with only what we were wearing. Sir. I, uh. Curufin.”

He thinks that Turgon burned those clothes, along with what he had taken from Eöl before his execution. Maeglin does bear more than a passing resemblance to his mother, but he knows very well that his looks, with his far lighter, almost sickly, skin and his ink-dark hair, make him very clearly his father’s son. Perhaps dressing him like a Noldo was an attempt to distance him from that. Maeglin had conceded to Turgon’s will, braided his hair in the Gondodhrim style. But he cannot say that it has worked.

Maedhros’s eyes visibly narrow, and Maeglin begins to fear that he has said something wrong, misstepped somehow. There are different rules here, maybe, and he’s accidentally broken one only moments after Lord Maedhros has agreed to take him in, or perhaps the cost of clothing him will be displeasing to the prince - it’s not too late for Ecthelion to be summoned to escort him back to his uncle, but surely he can find some way to make it up, some small grace by the benefit of being so young and so recently arrived here.

“You will forgive our ignorance,” says Maedhros carefully, oblivious to his little cousin’s internal panic. “We have not had much news of what befell the lady Írissë, but for that of her death. If the subject is not still too near for you, I would appreciate some explanation of the life and the fate of our cousin, as would Celegorm, when he returns here.”

Maeglin nods obediently, taking Maedhros’s ‘request’ as he’s sure it’s meant: as a warning of the interrogation he will face later. His father had ever been suspicious and possessive, and such things had become familiar to him; standing before Eöl in the dark of Nan Elmoth, answering question after question until the words fell thoughtless from his lips. Eöl had not bothered to couch his ‘requests’ in such polite language.

Perhaps it will not be that bad.

Perhaps it will be worse. He has no metric by which to tell; the reserved individual in front of him does not bear any great resemblance to the tales of invasion and kinslaying that Maeglin has been fed.

“Come then, young Lómion,” says Curufin, rubbing his calloused hands together and gesturing towards the one small trunk that Maeglin had managed to scrape together enough belongings to halfway fill. “Most of our absent brothers would likely not appreciate finding you asleep in their beds - a person gets territorial, after a few centuries - but I have it on good authority that the Ambarussa are far away hunting towards the Helevorn, and they spend the greatest part of the year as nomads anyhow. You can have one of their beds until we can set a room up permanently for you.”

Curufin moves so quickly that Maeglin has to stumble to bow again to Maedhros before he runs after him. He is led briskly out from the great hall and into the belly of the castle.

“We will have warm clothes Tyelpë outgrew that you can borrow, too.”

It’s difficult not to visibly sigh in relief. Curufin looks sideways at him, something devious in his expression.

“I don’t suppose you know what _tyelpë_ means, boy?”

“No, sir.”

“Curufin.” he corrects casually. “It’s an old form of the word, anyway. _Telpe_ . In Sindarin it would be _celeb._ ”

Oh. _Silver_. It is a word that he should know, and feels stupid for failing to remember - a common component in names, and what use is Maeglin as a craftsmen if he does not know his metals?

“Is Tyelpë your…?”

“My son. He goes often among the dwarves, I believe, but we send riders to Gondolin if we need to find him. You may have met him, actually; my understanding is that he prefers to go by -”

“Celebrimbor!” bursts Maeglin, with the sudden excitement of realisation. The resemblance between them is strikingly obvious now that he knows to look for it: the narrow dark eyes that seem to be the mark of all of Finwë’s line, the strong jaw, the mid-brown hair, even the utilitarian braid they both wear. “You are very like him.”

“You have it backwards,” counters Curufin, amused. Whatever his biting nature, it seems that he feels a great warmth towards his son. “I came first, after all. You know him, then?”

Maeglin flushes.

“I have met him, although I would not say that I know him. He permitted me to watch him at the forge, is all. It was incredible.”

After a few days in Gondolin, Maeglin had plucked up the courage to ask his uncle if he was confined to his - perfectly comfortable, but disconcertingly alien - chambers. Turgon had seemed a little embarrassed by the question, inviting him to dine at the high table with his cousin Idril if that was what he wanted, and saying that the palace was open to him to explore as he pleased. Not the city, then, but at least the palace. And at the base of the palace, by stables and kitchens, there had been a forge, and Celebrimbor, working with stunning concentration and resolve on a sword. He had not paused or even stuttered in his work as Maeglin slipped, fascinated, through the doorway, but he had calmly met the boy’s eyes between blows to the metal, and given the smallest of nods when Maeglin promised fervently that he would not be a distraction. There had been a strange grace in the way that the long blade took shape.

“But then you must be a smith yourself, Lómion? I have not known any of the line of Fingolfin to be inclined to the craft.”

Too caught up in the memory to think before he speaks, Maeglin nods.

“Yes, my -”

Ah, damn it all to Mandos. He should not be so brainless as to bring up Eöl at a time like this, when Curufin has seemed almost to be beginning to like him. But now he has started the sentence, and the full force of Curufin’s sharp curiosity is turned on him again, so he has no choice but to finish it.

“My father taught me.” he admits, voice low. “But I don’t have anywhere near the same skill as Celebrimbor.”

Fortunately, Curufin is distracted enough by talk of his son that the mention passes without comment.

“Well, you will have to show me.” He must see the expression of alarm on Maeglin’s face, because he gives a short bark of a laugh. “Don’t worry, boy. I have several thousand years’ experience on you, and we still hold my father to be Arda’s greatest smith; I do not intend to pass harsh judgement on you.”

Through the narrow and twisting stone corridors of the mountain , they have arrived at a long row of seven spacious bedrooms that must be the brothers’ own. Curufin holds up a hand for him to wait as he heads into the sixth room, and Maeglin takes the opportunity to blow on his hands and rub up and down his biceps; anything to conserve warmth. No wonder that it must be the Eldar that protect this march: Naugrim could survive this, perhaps, but there is little here by the way of precious stone or safety to tempt them, and Edain would surely succumb to sleep and death in such cold.

Curufin emerges dragging a wooden chest, which he drops in front of Maeglin and bends to open.

“You must not be afraid of Maedhros, either.” he says, half-distracted, as he lifts out a child’s hunting cloak and folds it away again as too small. “I know he can seem intimidating to the uninitiated, but do not forget, you are to be living with six men who remember him when he was a gangly and awkward elfling of thirty.”

He passes several more-or-less correctly sized fur cloaks and thick tunics to Maeglin, who accepts them with a shy smile at the thought of Himring’s tall and noble lord even younger than Maeglin is now, tripping over his long legs.

“Maglor has the best stories of Maedhros making a fool of himself, since they're the closest in age, but I certainly remember enough to keep you entertained, if his face and his handlessness do not frighten you off.”

His small smile fades. Irrespective of the marks of torture upon Maedhros, Maeglin would never have the confidence to openly mock an elf he will likely have to swear allegiance to very soon, but he does not say that. Curufin is looking down as he continues to rifle through his son’s clothes, anyway.

“Is Maglor the, uh…”

At that, Curufin looks up at him with a frown.

“The one who was standing by Maedhros when you were speaking. Very dark hair.”

That’s not so complicated. _Maedhros and Maglor, close in age, and then Curufin, father of Celebrimbor._ He can remember that.

“Lómion… Írissë never taught you anything about us? Nothing at all?”

Despite the attempted lightness of his tone, there’s an old sadness in Curufin’s eyes, one Maeglin feels suddenly, unbearably guilty about. The loathing he feels towards every aspect of his life swells up again with a vengeance, and he looks to his ill-fitting boots, unwilling to meet Curufin’s intense gaze directly.

“My fa- I mean, Eöl forbad any talk of the Noldor.” he says, and swallows hard. “I’m sorry. If he - if he caught Naneth speaking Quenya he would be furious. I swear, I tried to learn, but -”

“No,” cuts Curufin. “No, I’m sorry. That is not your fault. And I should know to be the last person to judge a ner by the sins of their father.”

He rises, with another armful that he transfers to Maeglin. Something in his actions suggests he wishes to touch, or to offer some greater comfort, but does not know how, so he glances at the clothes between them instead.

“I apologise for having you display the sigil of another house,” says Curufin, more formally, nodding stiffly to an eight pointed star that Maeglin does not recognise. “But they will keep you from freezing well enough, and I am afraid that Maedhros and Celebrimbor would take worse offence to you cutting it off than to you simply wearing it.”

Among the Sindar, Maeglin had not needed to wear any kind of sign of his allegiance, since everybody in Nan Elmoth had served Eöl the Dark; then in Gondolin, he had dutifully worn whatever King Turgon had seen fit to have brought to him to wear, and had not cared to observe any details of the sigil of the house of Fingolfin. Fëanor’s sign is not of particular concern to him. Despite that, understanding its significance, he bows, made inelegant by the way he is forced to grasp at the clothes so as not to drop them.

Curufin snorts.

“It will be Turukáno that has you scraping like that, bastards-son. I would not, if I were you. It becomes exhausting. We must conserve our energy, in this cold."

He leads Maeglin along to the seventh room, the last, not waiting for a reply as Maeglin, yet again, turns red; the winter-swollen door is so stiff that it takes Curufin’s entire weight against it to make it shift, but the room inside is well-kept and, though clearly uninhabited, not neglected.

“This is Amras and Amrod’s chamber,” he explains. “The twins, the two youngest.”

Almost all the room is consumed by hunting trophies, heavy furs and the heads of deer and wolves - other than that, though, it is a predominantly empty space, a desk unobtrusive against wall and a table and chairs stashed unused in the corner. What belongings the twins have not taken with them must all be stowed safely away in the chests and wardrobes beside the - thankfully, very large - fireplace.

“Who of the others don’t you know?” he hears Curufin wonder from behind him, and spins hastily to face him again. But the other ner is speaking to himself.

“My mother spoke most frequently of Celegorm.” offers Maeglin quietly.

Curufin’s hard face creases a little in fondness.

“Yes. They were close; they made a good pair, on the hunt and outside of it.”

He and Curufin pull his small trunk inside after them.

“There’s Caranthir, too, though perhaps the less said about him, the better. I am sure you will meet him yourself before too long.”

“Maedhros, Maglor, Curufin, Celegorm, Caranthir, Amrod and Amras.” Maeglin recites. “And Celebrimbor.”

“Good memory. Though not quite. I’m younger than Caranthir. But, close.”

Curufin turns towards the door, presumably to return the chest of Celebrimbor’s old clothes back to his room, and makes no indication that Maeglin is to follow him.

“Ah,” he says, catching himself at the doorway. “It slipped my mind - my brothers and I have eaten already, but if you are hungry then I can have someone bring you something?”

In truth, Maeglin has not eaten since midday, when Ecthelion and the rest of his escort did, and it is deep night by now. But the pangs of hunger he had felt had been drowned by the deep anxious gnawing in his stomach, and eating alone in the room he has been conducted to would only make him feel more like a captive than he already does.

“No, thank you, s- Curufin.” he says politely.

Curufin does not look convinced. Still, he inclines his head a little, conceding.

“As you please, then, Lómion. I would warn you about bed-lice biting, but I am quite sure that the cold will have done for any by now.”

Maeglin decides that remark must be a joke, for it is said without malice, and quirks a smile.

“I will send someone in the morning.” says Curufin, stepping out. “Goodnight. Do not freeze to death.”

“Goodnight, Curufin. I will try.”

He successfully represses the instinct to bow, his ingrained wariness for authority warring with his knowledge that Curufin would not appreciate it. When the door clicks shut, he cannot be sure, but he does not think he hears a lock. Not that it matters. Maeglin would not risk bringing down the displeasure of his hosts on him by checking.

Instead, he sits down on the closest bed, fingers knotting in the soft fur that covers it. There’s an inscription in Noldorin - Fëanorian? - tengwar on its wooden headboard, reading _Pityafinwë_ . Finwë, of course, he knows of, but he takes a few seconds to comb his memory for the meaning of _pitya_ . ‘Little one’, he believes. He remembers his mother’s cool hands holding his very small ones and her calling him _pityonya_ , little son.

For a long moment he misses her so much that he feels as though the sheer enormity of his grief will drown his fëa and take him to Mandos.

And then the moment passes with a choked, ragged breath, and he swipes hastily at his tears with the heel of his hand. His mother was never anything but brave. She would want him to be brave.

 _This will not be so terrible_ , he tells himself sternly, and forces his tired limbs up to the hearth, on which means to make a fire have been laid. _This will be better than Gondolin._ He is willing to face Maedhros and the inevitable barrage of questions tomorrow; he has been given warmth and lodging and food was, at least, offered; he has been promised that even the most frightening elves here are not in truth so fearsome as they seem.

Thankfully no snow seems to have come down the chimney, and the light catches easily enough. With his resolve firm in his mind, he sheds his thin surcoat and curls up very small beneath Pityafinwë’s blankets, sinking quickly into an exhausted sleep.

*

Maeglin wakes twice in the night.

The first time, because the fire has sputtered and died, and he is so cold that he has to stumble to Telufinwë’s bed to wrap himself in another fur before collapsing again; the second, thrust gasping and whimpering from dreams of being thrown from the battlements of Gondolin in his father’s place. From this, he can do nothing but lie sobbing and staring into the dark.

Maeglin is not afraid of the dark.

To the dark, if nothing else in this place, he is accustomed.


	2. Chapter 2

He is awake long before the servant arrives to summon him.

Dressing is a matter of more concern to him than it usually is: likely he would not have given any thought to the matter of sigils if not for Curufin’s words on them, but now he wonders if, as a closer relative to Turgon’s house than that of Maedhros, he should try to wear at least some Gondolodhrim colours, or if he would irk his new guardian by doing so. He knows of some old schism between the two strands of Finwë’s line, but not the reason for it, nor the details; Curufin had called Turgon’s father a bastard, and Fingolfin being only half-brother to Fëanor, that shred of information rings vaguely familiar. Perhaps that is why?

In the end, he errs towards a show of loyalty, and layers several of Celebrimbor’s cast-offs over one another. They are made for functionality and are not ornate, but each bear the star of Fëanor in some small, noticeable way, marking him as a member of the house. With his hair braided over his ears, he could almost be an actual Noldo - if not for the redness of his sore eyes, that is.

To his surprise, the servant who silently leads him back to the great hall is Avari, truly, and far more so than the ‘dark’ Sindar that Maeglin has grown up with. Nandor, he would say, from her red hair and the winter-leaf green of her Fëanorion-marked kirtle. He wonders for a moment if she was sent for him because she, too, is a native speaker of Sindarin, but, no; likely all of Maedhros’s staff are to an extent, as the two tongues of the elves are used almost interchangeably in these parts.

He wonders how a wood-elf fell into the service of the most notorious of the Noldor, and moreover, why, if there was any other option, would she stay? But he would not know how to ask, and must be staring, because she levels a very long, hard look at him. Shame-faced, he drops his eyes.

The great hall is no less impressive this morning than it had been the previous night; its vast, lofty architecture in the same noble style that had so stunned Maeglin when he had first arrived in Gondolin, lit by an enormous wrought-iron chandelier, lined with the fine craftsmanship of Curufin and Celebrimbor, and the spoils of Celegorm and the twins’ hunting. Its effect, however, might be said by someone a little less star-struck to be somewhat diminished when entering through a small service passage.

“Ah, Lómion,” calls the second-eldest - Maglor, he reminds himself - glancing up with a fleeting smile from a piece of parchment he appears to be working on (his untouched breakfast cooling, forgotten, beside it). “Come, sit down.”

Maedhros does not look up as Maeglin, blinking the sudden brilliance of the hall, perches uncertainly next to Maglor, but instead merely twitches the fingers of his left hand in the general direction of the door. Apparently accustomed to this treatment, the servant retreats.

“Did you sleep well, nephew?” asks Maglor amicably, looking with surprise at his flatbread, as though only now noticing that it had been placed in front of him, and reaching over to pass the plate of them to Maeglin.

“Yes, but for the cold,” says Maeglin stiffly. He is not entirely sure of how he should address Maglor, whose familiarity is not unwelcome, precisely, but comes as a contrast to Maedhros’s seeming blankness and Curufin’s restraint, and so makes up his mind to endeavour to avoid addressing him directly at all. He thanks whichever Valar come first to his mind that Maglor has remembered to speak Sindarin, at least. “Thank you.”

“At least you are dressed for the cold now.” counters Maglor cheerfully. “Curufin! Congratulations for managing to think of the needs of another person.”

At that, Curufin glares sharply at his brother, irritation written large on his face.

“As though I am not the only one here to have raised a child safely to adulthood.” he snaps.

“I would hardly say that you were the only one,” Maglor shoots back.

“Oh, no? Unless I am missing something fairly drastic -”

“Well, we  _ helped  _ with Tyelpë -”

Above their bickering, Maedhros stirs himself from his thoughts enough to finally make eye contact with Maeglin - who does not know in all truth whether he should be alarmed or amused.

“They are always like this.” he says, flat, voice as raw as it ever is, as though with screaming. “It is somehow worse when the others are here too.”

Maeglin finds himself smiling shyly at this.

All too soon, though, Maedhros clears his throat in a way that does not entirely silence his brothers’ quarreling, but is very clearly a demand for attention. Maeglin hurries to finish his food before he has to speak: who knows if he will have the opportunity afterwards. Doing so makes him want to cough, and his eyes water - when he goes to rub at them without thinking, far too rough, hot pain ricochets through to the back of his skull. He hisses, barely bitten-back. Even after this long away from the forest, his eyes ache in the unfamiliar brightness of morning; _ I should _ , he thinks, cursing himself inwardly for his stupidity,  _ have the damned sense to remember that by now. _

He has to force himself to open his eyes again, dreading the way that the Fëanorions will be looking at him.

“Sorry,” he mumbles as he does.

There’s a furrow low between Maedhros’s brows.

“You said that you slept?” he rasps, and Maeglin’s heart jolts fearfully in his chest at the thought of being suspected by this ner of lying.

“Yes,” he says hastily. “I did, it’s only the light, I…”

_ They are not Eöl _ , he reminds himself.  _ They will not be angry. Not over this. _

“My mother used to secretly fill our chambers with lanterns, when I was very small,” he tells them, voice careful. “So that my eyes would adjust. But, still, Nan Elmoth was… it was as though the day would never reach us.”

He is thankful beyond words to be saved from further explanation.

“Lómion.” interjects Maglor, as though in realisation, then translates the name into Sindarin.  _ Dûion _ . “Child of twilight.”

Maeglin wonders if, most of them having changed their own names, they will expect him to answer to Dûion. He nods mutely.

“The light is hurting you?”

It is not soft-hearted, sympathetic Maglor that asks: it is Curufin, whose shrewd eyes are already scanning across his work on the chandelier, as though calculating how best to take it down and dim it. Maeglin blinks at him, stunned.

“It is no concern, sir. It will mend in time. As I said - only in the morning.”

Curufin’s eyes drop, first, assessingly, to Maeglin, and then to his brothers, in an obscure signal that Maeglin does not know how to read.

“If you are sure, then, Lómion - and what did I tell you?”

That, Maeglin remembers, with a slight rush of humiliation that is somehow not as frightening as he would usually find it.

“Oh! I am alright,  _ Curufin _ .”

The only positive that has come from Maeglin’s mistake - a show of weakness, he is sure his father would say - is that Maedhros seems to have been distracted from whatever he had been planning to say.

“The nights are the longest in Middle Earth here, anyhow.” adds Maglor, with a slight sniff of distaste. “I very much doubt there is much risk of your being blinded by the  _ sun _ , although the interminable candles of my dear brother’s workshop are quite another matter.”

Maglor’s emphasis on  _ sun _ reminds Maeglin with a start of the antiquity of the elves surrounding him, and he wonders at it. The first light they would ever have known would be the light of the Trees, not the dull and sometimes threatening trees that a grey-elf like Maeglin has always known, but of Telperion and Laurelin, in the Undying Lands. Maglor - all the rebel princes of the Noldor, in fact, Turgon and Aredhel as much as the Fëanorions - is older than the sun, by far longer than Maeglin’s entire lifetime. It is a thought that awes him.

But he is drawn back almost immediately to thoughts of the brutally physical. Maedhros shifts his position, thoughtfully swilling what seems to be wine - Maeglin would be confused at it at this early hour, if he was not so intensely familiar with the habit of both his mother and father to drink themselves insensible at any given opportunity - with his left hand and exposing, for the first time to Maeglin, the end of his right arm. It is not the still bloody, raw gore he has thoughtlessly imagined, and nor is it still bandaged, though it could not be generously described as appearing to be healthy. What truly does send a shiver of horror down Maeglin’s spine is that it looks, if anything, as Aredhel had in death; the corpse-pale skin is tinged with unnatural colours, as though dyed, or badly bruised. Maeglin remembers, the poison had slowed her heartbeat so far before the end that the wound in her shoulder had no longer even bled. Her lips had been the same blue as the tip of Maedhros’s stump.

But it would not do to react too openly to the sight. He looks down to the crumbs on his empty plate.

“It seems to me that there were many secrets, in your father’s house.” says Maedhros grimly. “Lanterns, language… my brother tells me that you have not been raised speaking even a little Quenya?”

It’s not a question that particularly requires an answer, but Maeglin nods anyway, trying to ignore the deep feeling of sinking in his gut and his nausea.

“I know a few words.” he offers, weakly. Maedhros, who heard him stumble over speaking yesterday, graciously does not push the point.

“Well. Perhaps it is for the best. The dialect spoken by most of our people, and in Gondolin, has its differences to that which our father favoured, and if you had begun to learn then it would likely only be a cause of confusion for you. Hinderance, more than help.” Something that might, on another person, be considered a smile, flickers briefly over Maedhros’s scarred face. “You may hear it said that we lisp.” 

_ How did my mother speak?  _ he wants to ask, but knows where her home was and fears that the answer may be displeasing to the Fëanorions.

Maeglin had torn his eyes from the sight of his new lord’s stump as soon as he could bring himself to, afraid to be caught staring, but it seems Maglor has no such scruples. When he happens to glance towards his brother’s arm, his response is impassioned, almost violent; he leans sharply across the table, angling his head to look more closely at the wound, then barks something in furious and rapid Quenya. Of it, Maeglin only catches the words  _ heal _ and  _ sing _ .

“Later.” Maedhros snaps back, a clear evasion, and then looks again to Maeglin. His jaw clenches as he redirects himself to calm from his annoyance at Maglor. “What I mean to say, Lómion, is that I trust you will find no need for such secrecy in Himring. You may have your privacy of course -” And here Maeglin exhales the tiniest breath: Maedhros may be lying, of course, but at least he does not seem to mean  _ you will reveal your innermost heart to me or there will be trouble _ , as Eöl would have done. “- but you may ask of me anything you like, and I will endeavour to answer it. I am not a tyrant.”

“It is hardly for the leader in question to judge whether or not they are a tyrant themselves.” says Curufin mildly, something of his quirked smile in his eyes as he looks sideways at his eldest brother.

Maedhros inclines his head in acknowledgement.

“That is true. Would you say I was tyrannical, Curvo?” His harsh voice is teasing, fond. Curufin pretends to consider for long enough that Maedhros’s eyebrows raise.

“No.” he concedes, eventually, with his expression warm. “And neither would any of the elves that have served you, nor the men. So you will have all of their reassurances, Lómion, if you wish for them.”

Maeglin bows his head, half nodding, and half averting his eyes from the display of brotherly affection, to which he is not sure how he should respond. Both he and Idril had had the pensive quietness of lone children in one another’s company, and she had received her father’s few moments of gentle goading with so many scowls that Maeglin had been far too shy to join in. The Fëanorions, on the other hand, draw him into their meaningless squabbles without question.

“In any case,” finishes Maedhros. “I do not intend to hold your rights or freedoms from you, and there will be no need to hide from me.”

He does not look away from his cousin until Maeglin nods to show he understands - it seems that this is a subject that he feels is of the utmost importance, and Maeglin wonders if it is because as High King Maedhros’s father or grandfather were as strict as Eöl, or if Maedhros’s gratitude to Fingon the Valiant and his hatred of the Enemy is the root of it - and then resolves to never think such things again if he can help it, which could incur nothing but wrath if uttered aloud, no matter the kindness he has been shown thus far.

“Unlike Turukáno, I suppose,” cuts Maglor before Maeglin can find the sufficiently polite words to express his gratitude, a distasteful scowl on his face. “That uptight little -”

“Maglor.” warns Maedhros, low. “King Turgon has more reason than we to be concerned about the, ah, keeping of… certain secrets.”

That blatant reference, Maeglin understands, looking up jerkily at his new lord in alarm. The location of Gondolin. The reason for his new - if more lax - confinements.

“And I would not reveal them.” he insists, quashing his shame at the pleading tone of his voice. “I am no traitor.”

A deep shiver runs through him as soon as the words leave his mouth, some sense of dread, a premonition of a doom he cannot place. But Maedhros is already shaking his head.

“It was not an accusation.” he says quietly - Maglor, across from him, looks guilty for setting it up that way. “If we have put together the fragments of her story together correctly, then Írissë - Aredhel - kept that secret for decades.”

The wrench that he feels in his heart is not one that he manages to hide.

“There is no need to translate names, Lord Maedhros,” he says, somewhat choked. “I understand.”

In what little Maeglin is beginning to be able to read from Maedhros’s stone face, he seems somewhat embarrassed at having assumed otherwise.

“We all changed our names to the Sindarin after Thingol’s ban,” explains Maglor, although Curufin snorts, muttering  _ speak for yourself _ . “For all the good it did. Artanis dashed any hopes we may have had of winning favour in his eyes, and now there must be a thousand names among the Finweons.”

Sudden bravery fills him.

“I also prefer a Sindarin name,” he says, with false confidence, forcibly steady-voiced. “My father named me Maeglin.”

When they do not respond, seemingly stunned - Curufin is watching as intently as he ever does, the cogs turning almost visibly in his head; Maglor’s eyebrows have creased upwards; and Maedhros, Maeglin is somehow relieved to note, has that pinched listening expression on his face that is already becoming familiar - he continues on.

“My mother-name, Lómion, is important to me, but it was… private, for a long time. It is not familiar to me.”

“Another of the many secrets?” asks Maedhros grimly. Maeglin nods.

“If you are more comfortable with your father-name, then we will use it.” cuts Maglor blithely, before either of the others can launch into an interrogation. “We do for Curufin, after all.”

Curufin only lifts one shoulder dismissively when Maeglin glances at him in surprise.

“An abbreviation of Curufinwë.”

Maglor smiles at Maeglin, as though sharing a private joke.

“So as to distinguish him from a certain  _ other _ Curufinwë.”

_ Curufinwë Fëanáro _ . Maeglin only minutely conceals his smile at the joke, which he is happy to even understand - his father’s vehement hatred of the Noldor in general (and of Fëanor, specifically) aside, some of Eöl’s retainers had been in the habit of using the name as profanity. Maedhros, however, does not seem to have taken any notice of Maglor’s levity.

“Not considering its language of origin,” he says, his voice curious. “I believe I was confused because of the way that the Lord of Fountains introduced you - he said that Lómion was an  _ essë o nosteg _ , a name given at birth. The words themselves are not specific, but it is conventionally… euphemistic, for a father-name. Amongst the Noldor, at least, since the naming ceremony is so soon after. Did you - do the Sindar not receive a name from their father at birth?”

By the end of the question, any sort of smile has fallen entirely from Maeglin’s face. There is the usual hot-cold of shame in his belly, both shame of ignorance - there had been so little time to learn, and anyway, why would the elves of Gondolin not assume that he knew this, this thing with which every Noldorin child must be familiar? - and shame of being made to admit the low regard that he had been held in by his father.

“I cannot speak for the Sindar of Doriath,” he begins, his thoughts straying to the marchwardens they had occasionally encountered along the west border of Nan Elmoth while hunting, who had seemed so foreign to a tiny elfling, with their grey cloaks and their bright lanterns and their high, haughty expressions. How strange, to be considered of one people with them, and a foreigner with family. “But… I know, in any case, that there was no such ceremony held. M-My father - Eöl named me when I was already twelve years old, and even then, only by… saying so.”

He had thrown a dagger very straight and precisely as he had meant to, a dagger of his own making and balancing, and it had found its mark between the ribs of a doe that in the forest’s eternal darkness had been hidden from even Eöl’s eyes. And so  _ sharp glance _ he had been called, as they carried the doe back, and he had been so shocked by the way  _ maeg glîn  _ had taken on a new shape towards him that he had not dared to question. Later, when he was older and could look as easily as through glass through the enchantments that made Nan Elmoth such a dangerous trap for strangers, his father’s growl of  _ Maeglin _ had carried an undertone of something else, too. Pride of a son and fury toward him. He cannot pretend to understand it. But then, he doubts very much that the Fëanorions care about the internal workings of Eöl’s mind.

“I knew it was against the custom of her people,” he admits, when they are still silent and watchful. “But she did not want me to be only  _ i hên  _ until Eöl happened to show an interest in me.”

Resentment slips into his voice towards the ends of his sentence, so he quiets himself. Above his head, Maedhros meets eyes with first Curufin and then Maglor.

“I presume that the Dark Elf had no concern for Noldorin mores, then.” rumbles Maedhros with his face as grim and inscrutable as it ever is; Maeglin wonders, again, if he has always been so cryptic, or if the mass of scar tissue that makes up much of his face conceals the minutiae of feeling that would be quite visible on anybody else.

Maeglin looks away from Maedhros and shakes his head.

“The culture of the Noldor, to him, was… he saw them - us - as invaders. Unwelcome.”

Maglor inclines his head, seemingly confused.

“And yet, he took a Nolde for a wife?”

The words stick in his throat; he feels sick.  _ I could simply not respond _ , he considers, and knows that the thought is ridiculous, that this is hardly the inquisition that he is still sure Maedhros will eventually expect him to answer to, but he desperately wishes that he does not have to answer, does not have to bare the truth of his mother’s life. But he is not over-keen to learn how these princes will react to silent defiance, either.

“I would say that -” He swallows, against a churning stomach and an unsteady voice. “-that is, th- Eöl did not care for her wishes much, my lord. Even from the first.”

Maglor hisses sharply, and Curufin jerks back, blanching. Maedhros’s profoundly blank expression, Maeglin cannot make head or tail of, but he cannot bring himself to look for long. They are horrified. It is only natural to be: it was finally understanding this, in part, that had driven him to beg his mother to run. But he knows he is part of it, too, and hates that not with the vicious hatred he has for his father nor the guilt-tainted resentment he has for his uncle Turgon, but with a dull ache of miserable loathing, with the horrible knowledge that he does not have the power to change the facts of his existence, and a wish therefore to simply cease to be. At its worse, he has felt a cruel pull between his fëa and hröa, as though his soul is threatening to separate from a body made by such an aberration. But he has never had time enough for it to consume him entirely.

At least they seem to believe him. Eöl’s followers, though many had only their Avari and Sindar roots and their distrust of Melian Tóril in common with Eöl, and no great love for their adopted lord, had often sneered amongst themselves that an elleth so unwilling as Aredhel showed herself to be would have released her spirit to Mandos rather than enduring, and held Maeglin himself and his begetting as their proof against her words - despite the evidence otherwise, her longing to leave her  _ husband _ ’s smothering dark, his threats of chains to keep her. Maeglin had wanted to tear out his hair and scream at them of enchantments woven so powerfully that most elves could scarcely even detect their extent, of his mother’s iron strength below them.

“I…” begins Maedhros, but does not find the words to continue. It is so quiet all of a sudden, with not even the sounds of eating or of Maglor’s quill scratching against his parchment, that Maeglin can make out faint metallic sounds from outside that he suspects may be soldiers drilling in the courtyard.

Maeglin stares at the table so intensely that he begins to map out the details of the grain and whorls in the wood, to glean a faint understanding of the story of the tree it once was.

“Brother,” says Maglor, voice soft to the point of being barely more than a breath, but still plainative in what little tone it can express. It is Maedhros that he speaks to, but Maedhros is looking away, has turned his head so that his still-unbound hair falls to cover his face. Maeglin notices absently that the point of Maedhros’s ear is scored with a notch where it knifes through the copper-red curtain toward him, perhaps a place where a piercing once was, and was torn away. Strange. He has not know any of the Noldor to pierce their ears.

Maedhros’s movements have exposed his wrist again; it looks not only injured and painful, but  _ wrong _ , something he has only survived through strength of will.

Maglor’s patience, clearly, has run dry.

“Do you wish to get better or not?” he snaps, after a few seconds, changing the subject away from Aredhel. The lord of Himring finally deigns to direct his gaze to his closest brother, and although it is scorching enough that Maeglin knows he would cringe beneath it, the way that Maedhros shifts his right arm deeper within the sleeve of his robes for concealment makes Maeglin think, oddly, of shame rather than scorn.

He stands abruptly, and Maeglin startles a little at the suddenness of the movement after such stillness. Maglor stands too, as though ready to pursue Maedhros if he were to flee.

“Curvo,” he says, voice stiff and formal, but with an undercurrent so furious that Maeglin begins instinctively to worry. “Scouts and messengers from Thargelion have returned today. Find them. Shake them until they divulge whatever crucial information they have managed to forget. Ló - Maeglin, I leave in your charge.”

Curufin nods, similarly steely. It is not until Maedhros has swept out, with an insistent Maglor close on his trail, that Maeglin is able to speak.

“I should not have said that,” he blurts, in abject distress. “Forgive me, it was not -”

“Nonsense,” says Curufin over him. Maeglin falls quiet, swallowing hard. “Maglor asked you, and you spoke the truth.”

His tone brokes no debate, and so Maeglin can only look meaningfully towards the entrance to the hall and mutter a “ _ but… _ ”; since, surely, the elder Fëanorions’ emotional reactions can be nothing but his fault. Ever perceptive, Curufin follows his gaze, and huffs through his nose.

“ _ That _ . Suffice to say that his frustration is not with you, though he and Maglor should learn to speak aloud to one another.” Curufin waves his right hand dismissively, then, seeming to realise that may be inappropriate, aborts the gesture. “Maedhros is… sensitive, concerning the subject of his hand. Or lack thereof. Maglor is our resident healer. They butt heads about it, and valar above know that it is easier to talk a dragon into giving up its hoard than to convince a ner to listen to his younger brother.”

Curufin stands, pulling his red tunic straight, and Maeglin follows without thinking.

“Well, I have my orders,” he goes on, strange wry smile appearing again. “Although I would say that the fact that we were not interrupted in our breakfast is evidence enough that the scouts have found nothing and the messengers have been given nothing urgent. But they do sometimes need shaking.”

He reaches out to squeeze Maeglin’s shoulder, just this side of painful, but clearly meant as reassurance. It does not quite prevent Maeglin from feeling rather like the spare cast-offs that he wears.

“You may return to your - to Ambarussa’s room, for the moment, and I will come to show you what there is to see of Himring but ice, when I am done. Or, I will send someone, if Maedhros’s suspicions are well-founded for once.” His expression brightens suddenly. “I will take you to the forge.”

With the hand still on Maeglin’s shoulder, he steers him along towards the side passage, and calls “Thauniel!”.

Maeglin is not sure that he finds the touch between them comfortable. Still, when Curufin steps away and it is gone, he misses it. He finds he is alone.

But before he has time to do much other than look around blankly at the empty hall, listening to the echoes of Curufin’s footsteps, the Nandorin servant who escorted him here appears again at the door. Thauniel, apparently.

She inclines her head back the way that they had come. “If you will follow me, my lord,” she says, and Maeglin is too busy turning red at the concept of being considered a lord of this place to reply. Not wishing to think of the potential consequences of what he has just revealed to his hosts, he pays more attention to his surroundings, to the unadorned and geometric functionality of the fortress, almost Dwarvish in style. In truth, there are differences in the architectural style used here to that of Gondolin, but it is clear that they are disparate branches of a common root. A root apart from the Moriquendi.

He wonders if the Blessed Realm is a continent of cities built of spare, bright stone.

The thought returns him to his feeling of alienation in this place, and turns him towards what is familiar. It is an awkward subject to broach - not his most awkward today, though, and so he steels himself and simply says what is in his mind.

“I had expected to be surrounded on all sides here by Noldor.” he says, voice shifting naturally into a slight Nandorin accent. Thauniel raises an arch eyebrow as she looks back at him.  _ Are you not Noldor too? _ is easy to read from her expression.

“Himring is populated by many different sorts of people,” she explains instead, diplomatically, and with as generous a tone as that used to reluctantly indulge a child. “When it is livable for mortals, anyway. My lords take whoever will have them, since so many of the Eldar repudiate the deeds and the oath of Fëanor and his sons.”

“And you do not?”

He cannot help the question, despite its rudeness: he is very curious, and the absence of the apprehensiveness he feels in the presence of the Fëanorions has made him bold.

She is silent for a long moment.

“My sister was a thrall.”

That answer, he had not expected. Maeglin blinks in surprise.

“What?”

Thauniel drops a step, so that they are walking side by side. Her face is grave.

“My sister was taken and held as a thrall of Morgoth. My lord Maedhros and Crown Prince Fingon led a raid on a mining camp of orcs in Anfauglith, and she was saved, with several others. It was too late for her. But they buried her with honour, and sent messengers to seek for her family. So I am here - no matter how strange it may seem to some that any would come to the furthest edge of the north to willingly serve the sons of Fëanor.”

Maeglin has never seen any escaped thrall, but he has heard nightmare tales, and if Maedhros is any example then the worst of them may be true. He closes his eyes in dread for a few seconds.

“I am sorry,” he says eventually, meaning for her sister. “I… am ignorant of many things, but not of orcs.”

By the way that her hand brushes briefly against the long dagger at her waist, in this area, Thauniel is very knowledgeable indeed. She gives a small hum of acknowledgment.

The revelation that there is a threat of orcs is no real revelation at all: there is a reason, after all, that it called the  _ march  _ of Maedhros. They border something terrible. And besides, almost all the occupied areas of Middle Earth, even Dimbar around Gondolin, have orcs to deal with. Other than Thauniel’s tragedy, what catches his attention is the mention of his other uncle.

“Does the crown prince visit Himring often?” he asks. The title itself, if nothing else, had given Maeglin an impression of exalted inaccessibility; of Fingon himself, he knows little, but that Aredhel’s face had crumpled into fondness at the mention of his name. There had been a statue, outside Turgon’s chambers, but its marble-smooth surface and its formal posture had obscured in some significant way the handsome features of the elf that it portrayed. Certainly it had not been enough to glean an understanding of his personality.

She smiles.

“Oh, yes. He and Lord Maedhros often ride out together. They are… very close.”

Maeglin wonders if Fingon is very similar to his younger brother, in appearance or demeanour. Probably not, given the way that the Fëanorions speak of Turgon, but, still, they are brothers. Or perhaps he is more similar to Aredhel? There is no use in asking it of Thauniel - Turgon has not emerged from his hidden city since its construction was completed, and what are the chances that she often speaks to a high king? - but he resolves to ask Maedhros, when next there is an opportunity to do so. Surely he could not give offence asking after such a close friend of his lord.

Maeglin has not even in the faintest, furthest away glimmers of his dreams thought that Fingon the Valiant could possibly want him. They may be tied by blood, but the crown prince must have far higher concerns than a boy like Maeglin. Besides, there is also the matter of how dangerous he is, with his knowledge of valuable secrets. Fingon would have no way to contain him on campaign as Turgon and Maedhros can in their walled holds.

*

What happens now, Maeglin will never so much as suspect. No one will ever tell him.

Curufin does not, in fact, go to find the scouts. Not directly. He pauses a few feet from the entrance to the great hall, waits until Maeglin and Thauniel’s footsteps have faded, and then turns around and strides as fast as he can towards Maglor’s study, since - as Maedhros hates for his followers to see his vulnerabilities - that is certainly where Maglor and Maedhros will be.

To the outside observer, Maedhros’s posture might be mistaken for that of a ner relaxed, slumped as he is at the desk, leaning with his right elbow on the armrest so that his arm is extended toward his brother at an angle. But even approaching from behind, Curufin can see the rigidity of the position, the way that the muscles in Maedhros’s back are held tense as taut ropes, set to snap. Maglor glances briefly up at the  _ click  _ of Curufin closing the door behind him, a warning in his eyes, and then returns to his work; it is nothing more than the usual remedying of Maedhros’s neglect of his wound, he judges, by the soft singing of the verses of Maglor’s usual healing song for pain relief and the staving off of infection, and the way that the ointment-soaked bandages being rewound around the end of Maedhros’s arm do not stink quite so potently as they might.

Curufin is not the least cautious of his brothers, but he chooses for the moment to ignore the warning.

“We must speak of it,” he says, firm. “At some point. You know that.”

Though outside Maeglin’s presence they speak Quenya, and, ever loyal sons, Quenya with the shibboleth of Fëanor, it is a noticeably modern version of the language. His words seem to ring loud in the quiet over the antiquated lyrics of Maglor’s song, unchanged since their flight from Aman.

“There are many things for us to speak about,” says Maedhros, ostensibly in agreement, although Curufin would have to be a fool not to hear the evasion in it. “His father-name - that cannot merely be the practices of the Sindar. Lúthien was named before she was even born.”

Maglor, gently pulling the last end of the bandages into a bow, finishes his song.

“Lúthien’s mother was a maia and a prophetess,” he points out, with the last remnants of power in his voice. It’s accidental, and therefore unfocused, but enough that neither of his brothers are able to interrupt him. “And her father was old enough to remember Cuiviénen. She may not be the most pertinent example.”

“Still,” grates Maedhros. “It was cruel.”

Curufin nods, thinking of the way that Maeglin stumbles over his words when he speaks of Eöl. The matter of the name may well have been the least of his cruelty. And Fëanor has received enough slander as a father in the years since his death that Curufin cannot help but turn his thoughts to his own family.

“With all that nonsense over Ambarussa, at least no one could claim that they were not cared for. I can think of no other reason to withhold a name but for spite.”

“Or stupidity,” interjects Maglor, with enough lightness in his voice that Curufin readies his withering glare preemptively, knowing what is coming. “Although I suppose having a fool for a father is a scenario more likely to end up with a child given some ridiculous, nonsensical name like, oh, ‘silver fist’, than a child given no name at all.”

“Káno, for the thousandth time-”

Maedhros makes the strange grumble that passes for his laughter now - Curufin had thought he was choking, the first time - but it is a memory of Maeglin’s words the night before, and not that, that silences Curufin in the middle of his sentence.

“He has met Tyelperinquar, you know. At a forge in Gondolin.”

At that, both of his brothers actually go as far as to turn around and look at him directly - no matter Maglor’s teasing on the subject, they have all been a part of raising Tyelpë, and have treasured him not only as their nephew and the youngest of their family, but as the last fragment of the House of Fëanor untouched by the Oath and its evils.

“And did he say how he was?”

Curufin shrugs stiffly.

“Not so directly. Well enough to be crafting, though.”

“He would need to be in dire straits indeed, not to be crafting.” says Maglor, the smile on his face having turned sincere.

“The boy is a smith too,” presses Curufin. “Of some skill, I suspect, if Tyelpë was prepared to endure his presence - although he would not admit that to me. Shy, of course, but he also said that he learned the craft of his father. And Eöl is not an elf that he speaks of lightly.”

There is a suspended moment of tense silence, in which the air is choked with the emotions that Curufin has become intimately acquainted to, the familiar, drowning sadness of Maglor towards the tragedies of their adopted land and exiled people, the impotent fury of Maedhros, his rage at himself for his inability to defend those in his charge against everything and anything. Neither of his brothers speak.

“We can only thank Nienna that Turgon executed Eöl before any of us could get to him.” says Curufin eventually, his own tight anger in his voice. “I do not think that our people would take kindly to yet another kinslaying.”

“This makes Turgon as much a kinslayer as any of the House of Fëanor.” Maglor points out. “What he did to Eöl.”

Maedhros makes a low, dismissive sound in his ruined throat.

“I am sure he does not think of it that way. There always was a school of thought in Tirion arguing that we and the Moriquendi are not of one people. Although, I wonder… if he holds any betrayal of his city at a penalty of death, surely he must threaten his own people as well? And Maeglin, even?”

_ And what truer and worse sort of kinslayer could there be, than one who would kill even his own family?  _

The scenario only becomes more opaque the more that Curufin tries to make sense of it. Their holier-than-thou kin are appalled that they would murder under the compulsion of a thrice-damned oath, but find justification in doing the same by choice, and for the sake of a  _ city _ ?

Maglor taps his long fingers against his chin in consideration.

“Maeglin does not speak of his uncle the way that we used to of Nolofinwë or Arafinwë at his age, no matter what Atar had to say about them.” His voice is far more sombre than customary for him. “Do you really think prim and proper little Turvo capable of that? To terrorise the boy so? Maeglin is Avari, too, after all.”

“He is not.” Curufin snaps, without thinking.

“He is as much as he is Noldor.” Maglor shoots back.

“Fingon will know better than we can.” says Maedhros, with an air of finality, and just as Curufin could have assumed he would. Notwithstanding the fact that Fingon belongs even more firmly than Turgon to the faction of the family that he had himself, in his youth, disparagingly described as  _ golden prince perfect _ , and will likely therefore be horrified at everything about the situation, Maedhros is right in that he will at the very least have more knowledge than they of the going-ons of Gondolin; moreover, Fingon, who had been practically fused to Maedhros’s bedside through all of his recovery from his torment at the hands of Sauron, may be better able than they to reconcile the evil that Aredhel must have endured and the pitiable young thing that is Maeglin, who is the progeny of it. No one bothers to ask if Maedhros has already sent word to the High King. Even if he had not, Fingon would turn up in Himring sooner or later. He always does.

Curufin leans against the doorframe as Maglor raises Maedhros’s wrist to inspect again. Life will continue, of course, as it generally does, no matter the horrors of Beleriand. It will do Maeglin good, to be drawn into their routines.

“In the meantime,” he says, delicately. “I think that it would be for the best if you could be a little more cautious in your treatment of him. He thought that he was the cause of your anger, earlier.”

Maedhros nods again, formally, with his back turned so that all Curufin can see is his hair rippling with the movement, and Maedhros cannot see the eye-roll he receives in return. Curufin hates when he uses the princely act on his brothers.

“Russandol,” he says, quietly, the childhood nickname falling more naturally from his lips than either of Maedhros’s birth-names. “Please. Remember how easy it was to feel as though we fell short of what Atar wanted from us.”

The only sign he is given that they are listening is the way that Maglor’s fingers cease their movement.

“None of Maeglin’s fathers have bound him to damning oaths,” Curufin presses on, voice hoarse. “But they have imprisoned him, threatened him. Do not make him struggle more than he has to. And do not give him another reason to hate the authorities of the Eldar.”

He does not wait to see if Maglor or Maedhros will find a way to respond. He simply turns and walks away.

He misses Tyelperinquar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter one, but I had this scene planned, and I wanted to share it :)
> 
> I know literally nothing about metalwork.

“Good. Now withdraw it from the fire, and have your flat hammer ready.”

Maeglin frowns slightly, but Curufin answers before he can express his doubts.

“We’re going to move fast, boy. It will be hot enough.”

His brow smooths immediately as he does unquestioningly as he is told, and Curufin thinks, not for the first time this week, that he would be prepared to keep such an intelligent and well-behaved elfling such as this away from Turgon at sword-point if necessary.

They move in tandem, Curufin leading and Maeglin responding, and they do so well, if not quite so fluidly as he might have with his own son. These are the roles to which they are accustomed, Maeglin as used to following his father as Celebrimbor once had been to following Curufin, although their styles are quite dissimilar. Eöl had wrought his magic into all his work, had invented his own technique, a sort of Sindar bastardisation of dwarvish style, and thus made all of his own rules, where Curufin is a devoted pupil of Fëanor, an elf of science and of tradition. Still, though: Maeglin is no obstruction, and he is eager to learn - and Curufin, moreover, has had no apprentice in his life but Celebrimbor, and very much enjoys teaching again, especially so skilled a student. There is no arguing the fineness of Eöl’s craft. Maeglin had been glad to present Curufin with the sword that he stole from his father, and it is certainly impressive, if tainted by a decidedly malicious presence. Anguirel, no matter how dark it feels, is Maeglin’s birthright and his to keep, of course, if he wants it, but if Curufin has ‘forgotten’ to return the foul thing after his initial inspection (if he has, in fact, locked it in a chest under several wards of silence and binding), then, well, Maeglin has not seemed particularly distraught at ‘misplacing’ it.

It is a dagger they are making, of bright steel and very deliberately nothing at all like Anguirel, since weapon-smithing is what Maeglin is most comfortable with, though he shows enough aptitude with embellishment that Curufin plans to steer him towards the delicate and more creative work of jewelry and trinkets. It is not right for someone so young to create only instruments of death.

As they leave the dagger to cool, a sudden noise of hooves against the courtyard startles Maeglin, and he glances up. Curufin merely huffs, and pushes a wayward strand of hair out of his face with the side of his forearm.

“That will only be Maglor drilling the cavalry.” he explains. “They are harder pushed when their Edain auxiliaries cannot be here, is all.”

Maeglin blinks at the beads of sweat in his black lashes, which makes him look rather like a perplexed rabbit.

“But, Maedhros called for you.”

When Curufin raises an eyebrow, he nods to the outer wall facing the courtyard.

“When the riders went past. He shouted.”

Curufin moves to pull his leather apron off over his head, conscious still as he does it of Maeglin trailing at his heel; worried about what the riders might mean, perhaps. It has been two weeks since Maeglin’s unceremonious arrival in Himring, and it is a small enough fortress that he no longer requires Thauniel or another attendant to show him around, but two weeks is not so long that he is not still unsure of himself.

“Are you sure that you are not Sharp Ears, rather than Sharp Glance?” he teases, feeling more than seeing Maeglin blush heavily; he is so pale, both from his father’s inherited traits and his years away from the sun, that the blood rises very noticeably to the surface. “ _ Maikhlas _ . Quite a believable name.”

“Oh, no.” Maeglin breathes, his frustration somewhat put-on.

“What would that be in Sindarin?”

“Do not call me it.” Maeglin warns him, squinting his eyes against the daylight as they step outside, but then relents. “ _ Maeglhaw _ .”

Curufin barks a laugh.

“Perhaps not.”

“No, thank you.”

“Well, you should not mind my hearing. Perhaps I am like an old second-born, my senses faded with my exalted age.”

Maeglin bites his lip to contain a smile.

“I thought you were fifth-born?”

“Ha!”

There are two riders, both red-cloaked, and one as dark-haired the other is pale; they do not seem to be particularly alike, from this distance, but of course, Curufin knows that up close both very visibly have Nerdanel’s bone structure, Finwë’s eyes. He decides to be glad that Celegorm and Caranthir are back. There are other options - he could be annoyed that they have been away for so long, or that the two most abrasive of his brothers have seen fit to throw themselves into a delicate situation. But, for now, those feelings can wait.

“Stay here, Maeglin.”

Before Maeglin bows his head - a common habit of his, and one that always bothers Curufin, although he has not managed to find a way to raise it with him yet - he catches a glimpse of an expression of confusion and hurt, one that the boy will doubtless quickly mask.  _ It is their big mouths that are the problem, poor thing, not you _ , he thinks, even as he is striding forward to join Maedhros in taking Celegorm and Caranthir’s armour from them and helping them to stable their horses. He will make sure to tell Maeglin later. They have had servants for these kinds of tasks their whole lives, of course, but Fëanor had never believed in relying on others for what might be done alone. If he had been otherwise, perhaps events would not have ended in the way that they did. But that is all a matter of conjecture, now.

Caranthir slips from his saddle with a frustrated wheeze of pain; he must have ridden to find Celegorm, and then back to Himring, hard, as is his habit. He always regrets it, but he will not change. Curufin shakes his head and offers his brother a hand.

“Stiff?”

“Save it, Atarincë.” he snaps, despite his grimace as he rubs at his thighs.  _ Maeglin will be gratified to learn that he is not the reddest-faced of all the house of Finwë _ , Curufin thinks, wry. “Maybe if Maedhros did not choose one of the coldest places in Arda for his fucking fortress-”

“Oh, please, brother, do not speak to me of Himring. I have been living here, I am quite aware of its climate. How goes the wilderness?”

Caranthir scowls at him even harder, and Curufin, enjoying his prerogative as younger brother to be as irritating as he pleases, could beam. He notices as Caranthir shakes his head that he has changed his hair, cut a fringe into it in what looks like a Mannish style.

“What kind of a question is that? It’s wilderness. It goes as it does, destroyed, regrowing-”

“Alright, then, how go the Edain?”

That is enough to pause Caranthir in what would otherwise presumably be quite the rant; he stops to take a drink of a skin that Curufin can only hope is holding water, and nothing else, and then smiles his awkward, unfamiliar smile. He always has been fond of humans. Curufin suspects that the pace at which they live, the intensity with which they feel and behave, suit his brother far more comfortably than the Elvish cultural equivalents - even for the relatively hyperactive Noldor, Caranthir is unusually quick-tempered, as is Celegorm, and Curufin can only imagine that if they were subjected to a Vanyarin lifestyle of tranquility and contemplation they would be tearing their hair out within a few days. If either of them had been able to stand Finrod Edendil while he was alive (or he them), it would have been something they would have found they had in common.

“There is peace.” says Caranthir, with a distinct air of pride. “Little of it, but enough for them to prosper, since they multiply like weeds. We strike up better trade deals with the dwarves of Ered Luin almost every month, now.”

“You sound like a fond father,” teases Curufin, though gently. Caranthir, his anger tempered at the discussion of his subjects, does not object.

“As I well might. I have known the greatest among them since their infancy.”

Curufin remembers himself, quite suddenly.

“Ah, yes,” he says, trying his best to turn Caranthir away from the direction of the forge with a hand on his shoulder. “Speaking of ‘infancy’…”

Celegorm interrupts them in his usual brash manner. Deliberately ignoring the flat look that both Maedhros and Curufin level at him, he nods directly at Maeglin across the courtyard.

“And what is  _ that _ ?”

*

“Írissë had a son?”

For the briefest of moments, Celegorm’s voice has a delicate quality to it, an audible element of pain and loss. Maedhros had led them to the inside of the stable, where a contained fire keeps the horses warm, and Celegorm’s eyes glint wetly in the light of it. He clears his throat, deflects obviously.

“I thought perhaps Moryo was to be congratulated.”

“Dark hair, yes, but he’s much too pale to be mine,” Caranthir murmurs, with his thoughts elsewhere. “Káno is a far more likely candidate.”

“I am  _ not _ .”

Maglor has not seen his wife in over a thousand years. The chances of the pair of them producing a child together are, to put it mildly, slim.

“He is not anybody’s.” cuts Maedhros firmly, if inaccurately. He seems to realise his mistake, and scrubs his hand over his face. “Or, he is none of our’s, anyway. He is Írissë’s son with her  _ husband _ .”

The word  _ husband _ , Maedhros spits with audible distaste - Caranthir raises his thick eyebrows, and Curufin waves a hand to him as subtly as he can, saying  _ later _ , but of course by the time he that has done that, Celegorm’s expression is already thunderous, probably expecting the worst, and probably correct to do so.

“Her husband who killed her,” he demands.

“And who Turgon killed in return.” agrees Maglor. “The boy-”

“ _ -Maeglin _ , call him by his name, Valars’ sake,”

“-Yes, Curvo, fine, _Maeglin_ begged Turgon to give him leave to go. And Turgon wanted him surrounded by Noldor if he had to be anywhere else at all.”

“He did not consider Findekáno? Or Nolofinwë?”

Maedhros shrugs brusquely.

“Too occupied with the Enemy to care for a nephew or grand-nephew, I believe was the logic supplied. There was a speech given, of course, even if Turukáno himself was not present to give it. But I do not believe I can say that anybody listened.”

“Of course not.” agrees Celegorm, clearly remembering Turgon’s verbosity as well as the others did. Of all their enormous family, with the exception of his dark hair, he was always the most Vanyarin, and the Vanyar love their long, winding hymns and shows of rhetoric.

“Does Fingon even know?” asks Caranthir, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“About what?”

“About the boy, about him being sent to us, about Írissë, about anything?”

Maedhros’s jaw visibly clenches as he grinds his teeth in thought.

“Who can say? But he will find out.”

“You have sent for him, then.”

“Of course.”

Caranthir folded his arms across his chest. “And until then?”

“Until then,” cuts Celegorm, the haughty and apathetic look he uses to attempt to hide his feeling belied by his tense frame. “Maeglin is in the care of a pack of cousins who will smith with him and take him hunting. There are worse fates.”

“Hunting?” says Maedhros after a moment, the infinitesimal shift in his tone reading as amusement loud and clear to those who know him well. Celegorm sniffs.

“Well, he has Írissë’s blood, he was born in a forest, and his name is  _ good eyes _ . I’m sure he must hunt.”

Long ago, in Tirion, Celegorm and Aredhel had been very dear friends, much to the confusion and irritation of their fathers. The instant companionship between them had been more of a headache for Fëanor than Fingolfin, of course; in large part not even because of Fëanor’s resentments, but because Celegorm was significantly older than Aredhel, enough so that he had been functionally responsible for her when they ran off into the woods together. Not that it had ever bothered Celegorm. Oromë had taught him to make friends of the animals. Brave and determined little cousins were no different.

The thought of Aredhel as an elfling and an adolescent, grinning face flushed with exertion, white dress stained with green, braids coming loose - so different from her young son at the same age - brings Curufin back to the present.

“He is shyer than she ever was,” he warns Celegorm, a restraining hand on his arm. “Do not think of him as you would Írissë, or even Idril.”

Celegorm treats him to a withering glare.

“I am not in the habit of thinking of Idril at all, Curvo. Apart from if I am in a mood to recall being vomited on by a particularly blonde infant.”

He shrugs forcefully out of Curufin’s grip, suffering only to be followed closely by his brother, not touched. Behind them, Caranthir huffs.

“Each day I am more glad that we no longer need them as diplomats,” he hears Maglor mutter, and the wheeze of Maedhros’s laugh. The older two remain inside, while the younger file out.

“He is so shy, and yet he  _ asked  _ to come here? To Himring?!”

“That is what Maedhros asked him, too. But, yes. I don’t think that he could stand to stay in Gondolin.”

Maeglin is still leaned on the wall by the forge, head tilted up as though to catch the scant warmth of the sun in this freezing place, clearly watching them through his lashes. Neither Celegorm nor Curufin are the type of people not to openly watch him back, though.

“Well?” Caranthir says, nudging them forward, customary scowl fixed to his face. “Hurry up, brother. Come introduce us to our new nephew.”

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: this is an old fic draft I found quite fun on a reread and wanted to finally post. It's not going to be continued (past the three chapters I'll upload all this week).
> 
> CWs:  
> \- Past abuse and very low self-esteem from Maeglin (including misinterpreting actions taken in good faith by Turgon as abusive)  
> \- Allusions to Aredhel's rape and captivity (Ch.2; this fic is negative toward Eöl)


End file.
